


True Lady

by cobra_judy (lo_rez)



Series: All In Green [3]
Category: Robin Hood BBC
Genre: Enemies, Episode Related, Female Protagonist, Gen, POV Female Character, Self-Rescue, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-22
Updated: 2007-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:04:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lo_rez/pseuds/cobra_judy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deeds are the heart of any matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True Lady

**Author's Note:**

> Marian POV episode tag for 2x11, Treasure of the Nation.

If it hadn't been two against one she'd have managed, but the space is too small and the door too far, and her skirts slow her. She ends up on the floor again. It hurts more without her leathers between skin and stone.

She can't fight her way out of this one, she thinks, though her body urges otherwise; she knows Gisborne won't give her another chance. There are still words -- still and always -- and she has the knack of persuasion, especially with him, but words are impotent against acts and she knows that it's fatal, ultimately, to trust in them. Deeds are the heart of any matter.

The Nightwatchman goes veiled and mute about his rounds for a reason. The Lady Marian speaks from _en haut_, a cool distance, and it serves. Mostly, it serves.

But here, bruised and sprawling on the gritty stone floor, her gaolers as tense and desperate as she herself, she's both at once; and that has never happened before. Even her father, even Robin, caught himself between earl and outlaw, has never seen her whole.

_Richard Plantagenet has deserted his people_: she's never said this.

_The holy wars have defiled the men of faith who fought in them_: nor this.

_Prince John is a fool for bleeding the north-country, when his care would make us the bedrock of his kingship_: and never, even in solitude, this.

She's always only been Marian, with her quaint costume, her odd ideas and willful ways, to everyone but herself, until this very moment. She presses her hands against the stone and says something new.

"Did you expect me just to wait for execution?" It's a fighter's voice, she's pleased to hear. The defiance in it is anything but hollow and there's a bit of contempt there, too, for the adversary who's underestimated his opponent. She's heard the same from Gisborne's own throat. She wonders whether he'll recognize it coming from hers.

"I expect you to know when you're beaten!"

Her head is bowed, hiding a smile that bares her teeth. He's long sworn to have her blood, all unknowing; she's learned a dark love for the fight, her whole strength against his, nothing held back on either side. Beaten? They know each other better than that, oh, yes: even the agony under his rage, here, tells the tale.

But she's all one thing now, Marian unmasked, and she doubts there's any force on earth that can separate her from herself. Not even if it's death, this time. Beaten?

_Never_, says the smile.

She lifts her head, allows the twisting arch of her body to remind him of what he wants. He's chased her so stubbornly, for so long, in daylight and darkness, by word and deed. He's got her now.

_And you know it_.

*

[end]

_December 22, 2007_


End file.
